Look Back in Horror - Book Review

Razorback by Peter Brennan 

Published in 1981

Outback horror; Eco horror; Creature horror

This is one of the paperbacks I remember being scared of the cover of, when I was a kid. The book came out when I was 10, and the movie when I was 13, and they both scared the crap out of me. Even now, when I settled down to read it, I got the same horrified thrill I remember getting every time I looked at it in the bookshop. There were some dark books in that innocent looking shop – Michelle Remembers, Razorback, Prophecy - and Little Me was drawn there like a wide-eyed moth to a flame.   

Author Peter Brennan (and producer of Judge Judy, by the way), throws absolutely everything at this story. There’s a monster, an international crime ring, a story of love, loss and betrayal, plenty of human violence, and a landscape so brutal that it’s hard to believe anything survives – never mind thrives – there. 

Like all good horror, the premise has one hoof firmly in the real world. The razorback of the title is the successful outcome of interbreeding between two invasive species of pigs, introduced to Australia by humans, but then run amok. It’s a familiar enough story up to this point – the same has happened with water buffalo, horses, camels, donkeys, goats, rabbits, cats, foxes, toads (FFS Australia!!). But the ecological whirlwind that is reaped in this story is a huge monster of voracious and carnivorous appetites, loaded with intestinal worms, ticks, flies and maggots … as an evil protagonist, it’s fantastic!

Some reviewers have criticised the novel for promising a giant feral killer pig that it doesn’t deliver, and it’s true that the razorback isn’t the main character of the book. But when it shows up, it does itself proud. 

Apart from the aforementioned, which is just a bad nasty pig deserving of no sympathy whatsoever, characterisation in this novel is nuanced. People are complicated: flawed but heroic, wrong but understandable, admirable but really annoying, weak but doing their best …. even the least sympathetic bad guys are funny at times.  

Similarly, the theme of animal ethics is presented as a complex, many-sided issue, without clear answers. Among the cast of characters are committed activists; hunters who kill to make a living; farmers who live alongside wild animals in competition; and business people who hardly think about wildlife except as a money-making product.

The novel is wonderfully quirky, with the narrative perspective veering all over the place, from character to character, to a young kangaroo and even to the wild pig itself.

It’s weird, but it works, allowing a wide perspective and a deeper understanding of this stark, complicated place, and the creatures who are trying to survive there.

Verdict: I loved it then and I love it still.

Score: 4/5 feral pigs